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April 07, 2006

Latest report released by CSIS under the heading "CURRENTS AND CROSS CURRENTS of RADICAL ISLAMISM " which Analyzed Radical Islamism, says the state of Pakistan and it's intelligence apparatus ISI ,continues to fund terrorist organization Lashkar -e-Tyba and also notes that idea of Global jihad is prevalent in Pakistani circles . In in its 32 page report examining the radical Islamism around the world said " Global radicalism continued to be shaped by the deepening insurgency in Iraq, in which radical Islamists from inside and outside that country play a pivotal role. In the months following the Berlin meeting, the bombing of the London Underground, the attacks in Sharm el-Sheikh and Amman, and a stream of revelations about radical Islamist activity from Europe to the Middle East to South Asia and Australia — where a group of conspirators were arrested for plotting an attack against that country’s sole nuclear facility — had also to be taken into account. " .

With regard to Pakistan it said the notion of Global Jihad is well entrenched in Pakistani Islamist discourse . "In Pakistan, it was observed by a number of participants, jihadists have increasingly sought to achieve greater mobilization through frequent reference to events outside of South Asia — the American invasion and occupation of Iraq above all. In this sense, the global jihad has become a more important part of Pakistani Islamist discourse." says the report . Pakistan has become a training camp for all Jihadis , " while reports of the actual participation of Pakistani radicals in fighting in Iraq remain at best apocryphal, Pakistan continues to play a role as a source of training and indoctrination for radicals from outside the country. (An example of this is the case of Willy Brigitte, who was born in Guadeloupe, converted to Islam in France, trained in a Pakistani terrorist camp and apprehended in Australia, where he was preparing an attack.) " .

The report says ISI is playing a major role in Pakistani Islamic radicalism and unacknowledged state support is further accelerating , " the nature of Pakistani radicalism has been more conditioned by unacknowledged state support, particularly from the nation’s military intelligence agency, ISI, than is the case anywhere else. " . LeT continues to receive resources from state to wage proxy war in Kashmir says the report , "The provision of funding and other resources to organizations such as Lashkar-e-Tayba ensures both the continued existence of such groups and their availability to the state as proxies for combat in Kashmir and Afghanistan, though they also provide some restraint. In addition to these semi-official groups, others that view most of the historic jihadist groups as insufficiently ardent have appeared, including some that have targeted U.S. and other Western facilities. "

***** REFERENCE TO PAKISTAN IN THE REPORT*****

"In Pakistan, it was observed by a number of participants, jihadists have increasingly sought to achieve greater mobilization through frequent reference to events outside of South Asia — the American invasion and occupation of Iraq above all. In this sense, the global jihad has become a more important part of Pakistani Islamist discourse. And while reports of the actual participation of Pakistani radicals in fighting in Iraq remain at best apocryphal, Pakistan continues to play a role as a source of training and indoctrination for radicals from outside the country. (An example of this is the case of Willy Brigitte, who was born in Guadeloupe, converted to Islam in France, trained in a Pakistani terrorist camp and apprehended in Australia, where he was preparing an attack.) This point was underscored by one expert, who emphasized that the nature of Pakistani radicalism has been more conditioned by unacknowledged state support, particularly from the nation’s military intelligence agency, ISI, than is the case anywhere else. The provision of funding and other resources to organizations such as Lashkar-e-Tayba ensures both the continued existence of such groups and their availability to the state as proxies for combat in Kashmir and Afghanistan, though they also provide some restraint. In addition to these semi-official groups, others that view most of the historic jihadist groups as insufficiently ardent have appeared, including some that have targeted U.S. and other Western facilities. "

Any American who wants a glimpse of what kind of "infrastructure development" fascist Felix Rohatyn has in mind for the United States, should take a hard look at what just happened in Argentina. On March 21, President Néstor Kirchner signed a decree rescinding his government's contract with the French utility giant, Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux-Dumez, charging them with breach of contract and negligence. From 2001 to 2004, Lazard Frère banker Felix Rohatyn sat on the Board of Directors and the Audit Committee of the Suez Group, which oversaw the utility's operations.

Suez, the majority stockholder in Aguas Argentinas (AASA), failed to invest in vital infrastructure, Kirchner explained the next day, and much of the water it provided to 10 million people in metropolitan Buenos Aires, was contaminated with unacceptably high concentrations of nitrates. Aguas Argentinas even included warnings on its bills to customers, that children shouldn't drink tap water because it was unsafe!

Enough is enough, Kirchner underscored. In view of such negligence and "appalling" service, "the Argentine State decided to take control of the company, to make the investments so that water can be given back to Argentines ... and that it return to being a social asset, rather than something available only to a very few." Suez has been in the country for 15 years, the Argentine President noted, and walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars. "But we had to beg to get just a drop of water."

Much to the horror of international synarchist financiers, Kirchner signed a second decree March 21, establishing the new state company, AySA (Argentine Water and Sanitation Company), and authorized 400 million pesos to immediately build the necessary infrastructure, and close down contaminated wells. Financial sharks in London and on Wall Street brayed that the "authoritarian" Kirchner was on a "statist" offensive, and would soon take over other privatized companies.

Suez, Halliburton, and BechtelNot a bad idea. As Federal Planning Minister Julio De Vido observed in a March 22 press conference, "While Aguas Argentinas views potable water exclusively from the standpoint of a market economy, the State intends to ensure that [water] is valued and managed for what it is—a social and cultural product, which, in legal terms, means a human right."

Suez has a long and sordid history of looting on behalf of the private banking interests it represents. In the developing sector, along with its "rival" Vivendi, also Lazard-linked, it has focussed on water privatization, and engages in electricity piracy as well. EIR economist John Hoefle suggests that Dick Cheney's Halliburton and George P. Shultz's Bechtel Corp. would better be called "the Suezes of America," given that their economic depradation in Iraq, the United States, and around the globe, mirrors Suez's crimes.

In Argentina, as part of the privatization binge that characterized his 1989-1999 Presidency, the International Monetary Fund's poster boy, Carlos Menem, handed the former state company Obras Sanitarias (Sanitation Works) over to Suez in 1993, with the Spanish firm Aguas de Barcelona as a minority partner. Two years later, Suez took over the Santa Fe provincial sanitation company. The company also operates in Uruguay, Chile, and Bolivia, although Bolivian President Evo Morales is about to terminate Suez's concession to run Aguas de Ilimani in the working class municipality of El Alto next to La Paz.

Suez's 15-year operation in Argentina is marked by usurious rate hikes and contract violations, for which it has been repeatedly fined by regulatory agencies. Although its contract stipulated that rates would be frozen for the first few years of the concession, it raised rates by 88% on average between 1993 and 2003, claiming "unforeseen operating losses." Those who couldn't pay, usually the vulnerable poor, lost their service.

The 1993 contract obligated Suez to quickly address the nitrate problem and expand sanitation infrastructure. But by the eleventh year of its contract, in 2004, there were still several towns in the urban area it serviced, where well water had high nitrate concentrations, and where infrastructure was non-existent. In his press conference, De Vido pointed to the working class neighborhood of Lomas de Zamora, where nitrate levels in deep-water wells were 222% above the acceptable 45 milligrams per liter. Moreover, two million people in the concession area have no potable water, and 3 million have no sanitation services (sewers).

Rather than use its own resources to invest in infrastructure, Suez borrowed money abroad. After the government defaulted on its foreign debt in December 2001, and then forceably converted all dollar debts to pesos, or "pesification," Suez started screaming—along with the IMF and allied vulture funds—that the government should allow rate hikes of 60% to compensate for losses caused by conversion to pesos. The increase wasn't authorized, and the company spent the next three years biding its time, continuing to lobby for the increase while engaging in shady business dealings, and planning its exit from the country. Not even George Soros was interested in buying AASA, when it was offered by a minority partner.

Aware that Suez was preparing to leave the country, and that it intended to go to the World Bank's arbitration board to demand compensation, claiming breach of contract, the Kirchner government sent 50 undercover public sector agents into Aguas Argentinas to collect evidence of the company's misdeeds. The investigators discovered that just from its day-to-day operations, the company had more than enough revenue to resolve—in one year's time—the problem of excessive nitrate concentrations in drinking water. The investigation also discovered that the company had disbursed 25 million pesos annually for "consultants," and paid equally large sums to Suez-linked construction firms for equipment and "repairs" that were never done!

French President Jacques Chirac made known, through his Foreign Ministry, that he was not happy about the rescinding of Suez's contract, and the lack of "juridical security" for French investors. To show his displeasure, he will not stop in Argentina when he visits South America's Southern Cone at the end of April.

Kirchner wasn't cowed. In a March 23 speech before school children in San Isidro, he warned, "Let it be clear that I am not willing to let down my guard, and allow Argentines to drink contaminated water in exchange for a President's visit, or to make a Foreign Ministry feel better." As children in school, he said, "We learned that water is a public service which the State, minimally, must guarantee to reach all Argentines. There are companies ... that can be concerned with profitability; but there are others that [must provide service] to people as an act of justice and dignity, and be very well managed by the State." That is what he intends to do, he told his young audience.

In 2001 the Cheney-directed government of President George W. Bush, Jr., seized the opportunity created by the terrifying moment of the September 11th destruction of the World Trade Center buildings, to push through an attempted copy of the form of dictatorship which was given to the Adolf Hitler regime through Hermann Göring's organization of the burning of the German parliament, the Reichstag. The attempt was led by Vice-President Dick Cheney, on the same evening as that attack, to introduce forms of dictatorship which had been prepared in advance of that terrifying incident (see LaRouche January 2001 warning). These measures did not date from the January 2001 inauguration of George W. Bush, Jr., as President. This represented measures already underway in 1991, from the office of then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, under President George H.W. Bush.

Cheney was not fully successful in the proposals presented on the evening of September 11, 2001. Although important elements of the prepared plan for dictatorship were not pushed through at that time, important steps in the direction of tyranny were pushed through in the Patriot Act and related measures. Since that time, there has been resistance to such measures, from among leading Republicans as also Democrats; but, the corrosion of human Constitutional rights has been continued, step by step, on and on.

Briefly, as Jeffrey Steinberg presents these facts in the accompanying report, Cheney used his earlier position as Secretary of Defense under President George H.W. Bush, to push through legislation which represented the first of a still continuing series of attempts to take the control of the military and intelligence services out of the hands of government, and transfer these functions and powers to private corporations, as is merely typified by the cases of Halliburton and Bechtel, then as now.

After leaving the office of Secretary of Defense, in 1993, Cheney walked over to take the leadership of Halliburton. Later, Bechtel-linked George P. Shultz, formed the team which was to become the Bush-Cheney government of 2001-2006. Cheney appointed himself Vice-President of the George W. Bush, Jr. government, and controller of virtual puppet-President George W. Bush, Jr. Cheney and long-standing Cheney crony Donald Rumsfeld, as Secretary of Defense, conducted the wars which Cheney's lies had launched. More, and more, and more of the powers of the U.S. military and military-related intelligence functions, were handed over to private enterprises of Halliburton, Bechtel, and their high-priced cronies, while the actual U.S. military and its regular intelligence services, were gutted almost into ruins today.

Yes, this is a case of massive financial corruption orchestrated by the Bush-Cheney Administration; but, there are worse kinds of corruption than merely stealing from the public. The use of such privatized powers for torture, murder, and fostering of what had been previously adjudged to be wholesale crimes against humanity; crimes akin to those of the Nazi and Pinochet regimes, are worse. Those are the crimes whose spoor leads to the doors of not only the current Bush-Cheney regime, but to the office of the Cheney of 1989-1993.

The image with which these Cheney-linked developments confront us today, is that of a system of "world government" (so-called "globalization"), in which private armies and private secret-police forces, all employed by private financial consortia in the image of Halliburton and Bechtel, operate a new form of world dictatorship, killing any persons or groups of persons who are disliked, and enforcing arbitrary laws crafted by private financial interests' bureaucrats, just as the Nazis intended to set up a global system of international Waffen-SS rule, had Hitler won World War II.

No one who claims to be both intelligent and well-informed has the moral right to pretend that this is not precisely the kind of threat which the cabal behind Cheney and his and his wife's London accomplices represents. Globalization, a form of world-wide elimination of the sovereign nation-state which is already far advanced, is a process of transfer of the power of sovereign nations to global syndicates of giant blobs of private financier interests, such as those typified by the globally predatory system of hedge-funds today. Today, hedge-funds composed of consortia representing world-wide assortments of private financier interest, are gobbling up, and often obliterating entire national private industries and public investments, from around the world.

Synarchist FinanciersThe ideological hard-core of this is traced to figures such as the same, notorious Alexander Helphand "Parvus" who indoctrinated his dupe Leon Trotsky in the Synarchist (e.g., anarcho-syndicalist) doctrine of "Permanent War, Permanent Revolution." You could also look up the facts concerning Trotsky's doctrine of "Neither Peace Nor War" at Brest-Litovsk. This influence of Parvus over Trotsky was the genesis of the Trotskyist neo-conservatives associated with the circles of Carl Schmitt protégé Professor Leo Strauss of the University of Chicago and the doctrine of those followers of the Carl Schmitt dogma of Thrasymachus associated with the present-day U.S.A.'s Federalist Society.

The modern notion of financier-ruled world empire, takes its origins in the role of the Martinist freemasonic cult of Count Joseph de Maistre, which orchestrated the French Revolution through the hoax of the 1785 affair of the Queen's Necklace, the July 1789 Siege of the Bastille, the Danton and Marat regimes, the Jacobin Terror, and the reconstruction of the personality of Jacobin Napoleon Bonaparte, a Robespierre asset, into the "Roman Imperial" image of Napoleon Bonaparte. This Thrasymachus-like image of Napoleon as emperor was the model of G.W.F. Hegel's theory of the state, for the pre-fascist Romantic school of law of Hegel and his Berlin university crony Savigny, and such outgrowths of that as the modern fascist doctrines of Nazi Crown-Jurist Carl Schmitt.

All of these systems are outgrowths of what was known as the oligarchical form of empire of pre-Roman Mesopotamia, the failed imperialism of Thrasymachus, of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire launched by Diocletian, and the medieval system based on the alliance of Venice's financier oligarchy and the Norman chivalry. Since the medieval Crusader partnership of Venice and the Norman chivalry, all Europe-based empires of note have been primarily Romanesque empires of a financier-oligarchical power, such as the British East India Company's system of rule during the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries, empires modeled on the design proposed by that lackey of Britain's Lord Shelburne, Gibbon.

The financial system of the British since 1763 to the present day, has been an Anglo-Dutch Liberal variant, based on the Venetian financier-oligarchical model, encased within an intent to establish a permanent imperial order to succeed where Rome had fallen.

The creation of the Synarchist organization in Nineteenth-Century France defined the model usually chosen from among leading private financier interests for any attempt to establish a world imperial rule based on the combination of the Venetian financier-oligarchical and Roman models. The name for that form of intended imperialism today, is "globalization."

The intention is to create a world system, in which large financier syndicates, which exert greater power than any national government, actually rule the world instead of governments. The intention is to break the power of governments by degrees, and then use the first general financial collapse brought about by the current policies of the financier oligarchy itself, to establish a financial creditors' imperial rule over technically bankrupt nations and their governments. This imperial system is called "globalization."

That is the immediate threat to civilized forms of life, inside the U.S., and around the world, today.

The most powerful potential enemy of globalization is patriotism. If nations retain the power to govern, and to make laws according to the universal Christian and similar principle of protection of the general welfare, the power of usury is helpless in the face of justice according to natural law. Therefore, since a threatened nation's people will act to defend their rights under such circumstances, the instruments of physical power of the sovereign state are the most efficiently deadly foe of any attempted, imperialistic financier-oligarchical insolence. So, what Cheney has been doing, first as Secretary of Defense, then since 2001, and still today, has been to work to take the power of government away from the nation-state, and transfer that power to shoot to financier interests owned and used by the imperialist financier class. What Cheney has done to that effect, is therefore far worse than treason.

Rid ourselves of his position in government, urgently, now, while you still may, and restore the military, intelligence, and police functions of the nation back into the hands of constitutional government. Reverse immediately all legislation and other actions which perpetuate what is the intrinsic corruption associated with the legacy of the functional relations among Cheney, Rumsfeld, George Pratt Shultz, Halliburton, and Bechtel.

In a series of national and international meetings in mid-March, the Russian government put forward its concrete plans to lead the global renaissance in the construction of new civilian nuclear power plants. Recent personnel changes in Rosatom, the Russian nuclear agency, are designed to position Russia as a major exporter of nuclear plants, which will help finance the construction up to 40 new domestic nuclear plants over the next 20 years. Russia's current chairmanship of the Group of 8 industrial nations positions it to lead the nuclear revival internationally.

On March 15-16, the energy ministers of the G-8 nations met in Moscow, to formulate proposals to be adopted by the G-8 heads of state, scheduled to meet in July in St. Petersburg. Two days earlier, an extraordinary meeting took place at the Kremlin, to mobilize Russia's domestic nuclear industry and establishment to meet the challenge. In addition to President Vladimir Putin and nuclear officials, the conference was attended by Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov, and Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko.

Addressing the conference, President Putin emphasized that nuclear power engineering is "a priority [industrial] branch for the country, that makes Russia a great power; the most ambitious projects and progressive technologies are linked with this branch." Describing nuclear energy as "one of the most important national priorities" for Russia, Putin said that nuclear power is "no longer a Cinderella" or outcast.

The head of Russia's nuclear state enterprise, Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, stated at the conference that funds in the Russian government's budget are insufficient to build the new nuclear reactors that Russia needs. So Russia plans to build 60 nuclear plants abroad, expecting major "markets in southeast Asia, in order to finance its domestic program." That this can be done, he pointed out, is evidenced by the fact that in the past, Soviet nuclear specialists built 30 reactors in other countries.

This approach has been used successfully by the Russian government to keep alive its manned space program, and prevent its most talented specialists from leaving the country. The Russian space agency has been selling services abroad, including transportation to the International Space Station, in order to preserve its critical science and industrial infrastructure, and begin new space technology programs.

As chair of the March 15-16 meeting of G-8 energy ministers, Russia presented an 11-point statement as the agenda for discussion. It states that: "A significant reduction in the gap in energy supply between developed and under-supplied, less-developed countries is a major aspect of global energy security." The statement also describes nuclear energy as "crucial for long-term environmentally sustainable diversification of energy supply."

The importance of taking this global view was stressed in an article by Academician E.P. Velikhov, president of the prestigous Kurchatov Institute nuclear research center, on March 20. If the "so-called golden billion" people of the G-8 nations isolate themselves, conflict over energy supplies among the "2 billion people in the world [who] do not have access to electricity at all," will "require military unions, fleets, etc. ... generating international conflicts at different levels, and escalating terrorism," Velikhov warned.

"We need to give a new lease on life to nuclear power engineering that could become an important factor, capable of influencing the crisis," he wrote. Velikhov's proposal in 1985 for nations to jointly build an experimental nuclear fusion plant, will finally come to fruition, when Russia, the United States, Europe, Japan, China, India, and South Korea sign the final agreement to begin construction of the reactor in St. Petersburg, in June.

Although there were statements of agreement from the United States on including nuclear energy as important in the energy supplies for the future, there was no joint statement adopted by the eight industrialized countries at the end of the two-day session. European Union Commissioner for Energy, Andris Pielbalgs, told reporters on March 16 that there is not such a clear consensus on the nuclear issue among the countries of the European Union. "A common position on nuclear is still difficult to reach, because it's still controversial," he complained.

The United Kingdom is in the process of reviewing its energy policy, he stated, France is "very strongly supportive," while "Germany is phasing out nuclear power plants." However, there are signs that the British energy policy, to be released this Summer, will call for new nuclear plants there, and on March 22, during a visit to Japan, Germany's Economics Minister, Michael Glos, reported that anti-nuclear "public opinion" is changing in Germany.

Russia Is Not WaitingRussia has no intention of waiting until the other industrial nations approve its global nuclear development perspective to forge ahead.

One week after the G-8 meeting in Moscow, President Putin, with an entourage of nearly 1,000, including top energy officials, arrived in Beijing. During his first day of talks with China's leadership on March 21, Putin stated that Russian-Chinese energy cooperation goes beyond the oil and gas deals the two nations are signing. "This cooperation includes supply of equipment for the purposes of [the] nuclear energy sector, including our participation in developing new nuclear capacities in China," Putin said.

This was reiterated during a visit by Russian nuclear chief Sergei Kiriyenko to the two Russian-built power plants that are currently under construction at the Tianwan site in China. And on March 22, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov added that Russia "has very strong advantages" in the nuclear sector. China is expected to announce this year which vendor it will choose for its next block of four commercial nuclear plants, and Russia has bid on those reactors.

The nation in Asia with the second-largest nuclear power plant construction program is India. In July, the Presidents of India and the United States signed an agreement in Washington to cooperate in civilian nuclear power development. To do this, the 1954 Atomic Energy Act would have to be amended by the U.S. Congress, to make India an exception from the non-proliferation restrictions of U.S. law.

Russia is not waiting for the political wrangling that will take place in Washington over at least the next few months to be sorted out.

After India exploded its first nuclear device in 1974, the United States cut off shipments of fuel for India's two U.S.-built commercial Tarapur reactors. Taking its cue from the new U.S. openings to India, Russia decided it was now opportune to reinstate its own nuclear cooperation.

According to the March 21 edition of Pakistan's Daily Times, India has received the first of two 30-ton shipments of nuclear fuel pellets from Russia, which will be manufactured into fuel rods for the Tarapur reactors. The shipment, aboard a special freighter, landed in India on March 16, just hours after Russian Prime Minister Fradkov touched down in New Delhi, on a state visit. The second low-enriched uranium fuel shipment will reach India "very shortly," sources told the Daily Times.

It is reported that the deal for Russia to supply India with nuclear fuel was concluded last December, but because it was going to raise hackles, especially in the United States, it was kept under wraps until February. At that time, Russia notified the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group of the sale.

Over the past month, Russia has also signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Hungary, and has offered to help Vietnam build its first nuclear power plant.

One of the hottest subjects in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu is drinking water. The economically flourishing Tamil Nadu is confronted with a perpetual water shortage. The only solution is widespread desalination of sea water, and a leading Tamil Nadu politician and former Chief Minister, J. Jayalalitha, has made desalination her political trademark in the state. She has accused the national government in New Delhi of sabotaging her plans to set up more desalination plants.

Although Tamil Nadu has forced through initiatives to meet its water shortage through desalination of brackish and sea water, the fact remains, that the entire nation of India is facing a water crisis. India, which had enough drinking water for its people in 1951 at 5,177 cubic meters per person per year, is becoming a water-deficient country. In 2003, the country had a 25% deficit, at a rate of 1,500 cubic meters per person per year. The deficit is projected to rise to 33% by 2025, unless measures are taken to resolve it.

Ironically, Tamil Nadu is providing a leading example of how to deal with potable water shortages, not only just for India, but also for countries throughout the world. If combined with a major commitment to nuclear power as well, the potential for solving this life-threatening problem is clearly in sight.

Obstacle to GrowthJayalalitha could not have been more right in demanding more desalination plants. Tamil Nadu is a water-scarce state. Although it has 33 river basins, the rivers are short, and carry water seasonally. On the other hand, almost 45% of the state's land is under cultivation, and the annual food grain production exceeds 10 million tons, with rice alone contributing an average 8 million tons.

Minerals such as limestone, lignite, granite, clay, gypsum, feldspar, graphite, and iron are abundant in Tamil Nadu. Besides these, small quantities of gold, copper, magnesite, kaolin, bauxite, and asbestos are also found here. Many industrial units have been set up for optimum utilization of these mineral resources, and more would be set up in the future, if the water shortage could be solved. The organized sector employs more than 25 million people, and the number is growing.

At the same time, in order to grow, Tamil Nadu has invested heavily in education, and ranks the third highest in the Union in terms of total expenditure on education. There is no question that under the circumstances, Tamil Nadu should explode with economic activity and generation of wealth. However, the shortage of available water, and the national leadership's inability to develop policies that would help Tamil Nadu develop a water surplus, have held the state back.

Desalination Is the AnswerAt least some in that state have come to realize that Tamil Nadu, with its long coastline, is not really water-short. What it is short of is New Delhi's support to develop a water surplus. Over the years, Indian planners and crisis managers have talked about a Peninsular river project. One part of the southern development project would consist of linking the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, and Cauvery rivers by canals. Extra water storage dams would be built along these rivers, to transfer surplus water from the Mahanadi and Godavari rivers to the south of India. However, nothing much along these lines has seen the daylight yet, and it is anyone's guess when this actual interlinking would be done. On the other hand, it is almost a certainty that in a water-short nation like India, states which have some surplus water in their rivers, would object vehemently to such water transfer plans.

One such instance was the Telegu Ganga plan, which would have allowed seasonal surplus water from the Krishna River to get to reservoirs that provide year-long drinking water to the residents of Chennai (formerly Madras), the capital and main city in Tamil Nadu. However, the Telegu Ganga project has yet to supply the promised water to Chennai from the Krishna River, despite major investments made to the project by the state of Tamil Nadu.

It had long become evident to the state politicians that the only way Tamil Nadu's water shortage can be met is through desalination. Championing the cause, former chief minister Jayaram Jayalalitha in 2004 accused Union Minister for Environment A. Raja of stalling a proposed 100 million liters per day (MLD) desalination plant for Chennai. Jayalalitha has also criticized Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, also a Tamil Nadu politician, for prematurely saying that the central government was ready to give Tamil Nadu Rs. 10 billion (rupees) for setting up a desalination plant, and doing nothing to prevent the stalling tactic used by Raja.

In a rebuttal to an academic's assertion that desalination would not solve the water shortage problem, Jayalalitha, in a letter to a newspaper in September 2004, wrote: "The Government of Tamil Nadu is also keen to proceed with the desalination plant for Chennai. Desalination is the only reliable final solution for Chennai's growing water needs. Desalination technology has been greatly improved upon, making it now possible to supply fresh water at a reasonable price...."

Success Stories Around the NationThe reason that Jayalalitha is so confident, is that a large number of small desalination plants, based on the reverse osmosis (RO) process, are already functioning in the state. Water managers and experts point out Chennai's satisfactory experience with the five units in the city, producing 500,000 liters a day. Metrowater set up three plants at Nochikuppam, Kasimedu, and Velachery, in the area around Chennai, in 1977-78, and two at Kasimedu and Ayodhyakuppam in 2001.

The seawater-based desalination plant at Narippaiyur in Tamil Nadu, a major plant in south Asia, is successfully supplying drinking water to 264 villages in the Ramanathapuram district, according to the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage board (TWAD). The plant, installed recently, has a capacity of 3.8 million liters per day and covers a population of 235,000, providing an average of 10 liters of drinking water per day per person.

The Tamil Nadu government has approved the installation of 45 desalination plants in Ramanathapuram district, at a cost of Rs. 5.3 billion, and the installation work has been entrusted to Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), a Government of India undertaking. Out of 45 plants, two major ones are at Narippaiyur and Rameshwaram (300,000 liters per day). The remaining 43 smaller plants (20,000 to 300,000 liters per day capacity) have been designed for treating brackish water from bore-well sources.

Thanks to Jayalalitha's relentless campaign for desalination plants, the water managers and experts now point out that finally both the central and state governments seem to be adopting a similar approach. That is why Chennai's Metrowater has decided to go in for a 100 million liters per day (MLD) desalination plant.

Jayalalitha's campaign has drawn her close to a number of major advocates of desalination. One such is the President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a Tamil Nadu resident and widely acknowledged as the "Father of the Indian Missile Program." Delivering the inaugural address at the Indian Nuclear Society conference at Kalpakkam, near Chennai, in 2003, President Kalam had stressed the need for finding a lasting solution to the water crisis around the world. He said on that occasion, that desalination of sea water to produce fresh water appears the best, with 97% of the Earth covered by ocean. This could produce a perennial supply of fresh water. The Indira Ghandi Center for Atomic Research is located in Kalpakkam.

Kalam pointed out that India has begun looking at the use of nuclear power for desalination of sea water. A desalination demonstration plant at Kalpakkam, using nuclear waste heat for the multi-stage flash process that produces 4,500 cubic meters per day has already been set up. "These plants can be scaled up 10 times from the present configuration with out any difficulty," he said.

Already two methods of desalination—reverse osmosis and multi-stage flash—have been demonstrated at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC). Joining voices with Kalam, Jayalalitha, who was then Tamil Nadu's chief minister, urged the Department of Atomic Energy to set up a large number of smaller desalination plants all along the Tamil Nadu coast, based on the Kalpakkam experience.

BARC SupportThere are indications that Tamil Nadu may get what it needs. B. Bhattacharya, former director of BARC, who played a key role in developing the desalination plant coupled to a nuclear electricity station in Kalpakkam, has already supplied 15 desalination plants to different Indian states, and constructed a large desalination plant adjacent to the Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) at Kalpakkam, at a cost of Rs. 4 billion. The plant was inaugurated in 2002 by the then-Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee on Dr. Bhabha's birthday, Nov. 4.

In an interview in 2001, Bhattacharya pointed out that desalination technologies available today are broadly based on processes belonging to three categories: reverse osmosis (RO); multi-stage flash (MSF); and multi-effective distillation (MED). India has pursued all three processes for some time, and has realized that the RO and MSF technologies were the two in which it can be self-reliant. MSF does not need any imports. RO has a membrane module which is imported.

Meanwhile, the second nuclear desalination plant at Kalpakkam, with a capacity 4,500 cubic meters per day, is expected to be commissioned in March 2006, an official of BARC said.

BARC has already commissioned a 1,800-cubic-meters-per-day nuclear desalination demonstration project (NDDP) at Kalpakkam, using reverse osmosis technology. The remaining 4,500-cubic-meters-per-day plant, which is under construction at Kalpakkam on MSF water purification technology, will be commissioned this month.

- Mobile Plants - Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, told The Hindu recently that the BARC is working on a mobile barge-mounted desalination plant located meters off shore. "It will be ready by the end of the Tenth Plan, maybe in 2006 or 2007. People are working out the engineering details," Dr. Kakodkar said.

"It can go on any platform. It can go by water route or land route. But the first idea is to put it on a barge," the AEC chairman said. On the sea, it would float, depending on the draught. "The barge may be able to come within 10 meters of the shore," he said. But there should be a storage tank on shore, which can be filled with the water that has been desalinated. Similarly, if it is trailer-mounted, it can be parked near a storage tank that can be filled with fresh water. Pipes from the mobile desalination plant will fill the storage tanks with purified water.

Foreign InvestorsIndia's eagerness to accept desalination as a way to meet the water shortage has attracted investors as well. Saudi Arabia's Bushnak Group is forming joint ventures with Indian project developers to help set up desalination units, the first of which is slated to come up in Karaikal, Pondicherry, north of Tamil Nadu on the east coast, by 2007. In the case of the Karaikal desalination plant, the $8 million investment is proposed to set up a 5-million-liters-per-day capacity plant, expandable to 10 million liters. It would produce water for industrial use.

Bushnak has tied up with Hyderabad-based Pallava Water and Power to set up the first joint venture, which plans to undertake three desalination projects in southern India. The group has announced its plans to set up desalination units in the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka, besides Pondicherry (in southern India). Although the exact locations are still to be finalized, the second desalination project is planned south of Chennai for completion by December 2007, followed by another one in Visakhapatnam on the east coast of Andhra Pradesh by mid-2008.

This article appears in the March 31, 2006 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

This is a transcript of a taped interview with Lyndon LaRouche, conducted March 15, 2006, by Morteza Jabbari of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) English Radio in Tehran. IRIB is the state-owned radio and TV broadcasting network.

Q: In one of your previous interviews, you mentioned that London is behind the idea of a possible strike on Iran. What is the basis of your argument?

LaRouche: Well, first of all, the policy is a British policy, which certain people in the United States are connected to. For example, take the case of Dick Cheney, the Vice President. The Vice President is very close to Liz Symons, to whom he was introduced by his own wife, Lynne Cheney. And during the period, for example, between the time he was head of the Defense Department, under George Bush the First, and the time that he became the Vice President—and the acting president, practically—he negotiated certain contracts.

So, the Liberal Imperialist crowd in London, which is the Blair-Jack Straw crowd, is actually the architect of this. But the architecture runs largely through international financial channels, such as George Shultz, who is a former Secretary of State, and who is the architect of the present Bush Administration: That is, the person who pulled it together to be elected.

So, this is the key point from which this comes. It's an Anglo-American operation, but the policy itself, which is the British policy of the Arab Bureau, the so-called "anti-Islam policy," is what the motivation is.

Q: Do you think that this Western hue and cry over Iran's peaceful use of nuclear energy is in line with the idea you just mentioned?

LaRouche: Yes. This is a pretext. The nuclear issue is not really the issue. And from Iran, you know that because you know what the negotiations are, particularly involving the Russians, involving also the Chinese interest in this, and the general Asian view of this matter.

The nuclear issue is not the cause of the problem. The issue is, they want to have the problem. And therefore, they're using the nuclear negotiation as a pretext for an enlarged war in the entire region of Southwest Asia.

Q: According to the British Daily Telegraph, George W. Bush is to decide on the possibility of a military confrontation with Iran at the end of this year. What is your opinion about this?

LaRouche: Well, it's hard to say. It is not one of these things where you can predict exactly, it's going to go one way or the other. This is what we're trying to stop. Our view is to give Iran as much time to negotiate as they think necessary, because some of us understand what the issues are, and we don't want to create unnecessary complications for Iran internally, otherwise, at this time. So, let the negotiations proceed: I'm sure we'll come up with something, if we are patient. And that'll put the issue off the table.

Q: You talked about London's involvement in this issue, but Jack Straw has time and again talked about peaceful means and diplomacy, in dealing with Iran's nuclear issue, and has praised Iran's previous government, and criticized its incumbent President for their approach. You think he is not sincere?

LaRouche: I'm sure of it! After all, remember, you have in the history of Iran, you have things like the Sykes-Picot Treaty, which was authored by the British as a part of a process of getting World War I going.

No, these fellows are not exactly honest. We know them very well. In a case like this, one must deal with the facts, without discussing sincerity.

Q: Al Gore, in one of his recent speeches, said that America's political system moved toward decreasing the power of the Congress and the judicial system, and increasing the power of the Executive branch, that is, the President. Your comments in this regard, please?

LaRouche: Oh, this is absolutely true. This is precise. This is a group, which is the same group which brought Hitler to power, among others, between 1922 and 1945; the same group which is represented by the Federalist Society inside the United States, which controls several Justices of the Supreme Court, has this policy. The point is they believe they can only go to a form of dictatorship, like that of the Hitler model or some similar model, as the only way they can govern in this period, and get their policies through. That is the policy of a group associated with Cheney, and with others in the United States and in London.

Q: How do you see the role of Cheney in this game? I mean, this—let's say—creating wars? Is he the main guy behind the idea of, let's say, neo-conservatism, or are there some other people?

LaRouche: No, Cheney is essentially a thug. He's an administrator—not very intelligent, but very thuggish. He's a brute, that is a person who tries to beat people into submission as an administrator. He does not have the ideas himself. He was brought into his present position, remember, earlier, during the 1970s as part of the Nixon Administration's leftovers. He's been in and out of politics ever since then. He is essentially dominated by his wife, Lynne Cheney, who is the controller, who actually "wears the pants in the family," so to speak.

But this Administration was created by George Shultz. Now, you look at George Shultz, you're looking at Halliburton, you're looking at Bechtel, you're looking at those kinds of international financier interests, which are very closely tied to the comparable interests in the British system, or the international system centered in London. And that's where it comes from. Cheney is only an errand boy.

But, the reason he has not been dumped—remember, he's down, about 15% popularity in the United States, right now—the only reason he's not dumped so far, even though there's an effort by various of us in the United States to dump him, the reason is, is that he's got powerful backing from international financier interests, which are merely typified by George Shultz.

For example, look at the question of the Netanyahu election in Israel. The word is that there's an attempt to make Netanyahu the virtual dictator of Israel, and therefore to use Israel as a weapon against its neighbors. Most factions in Israel won't do that. Netanyahu would do that. Netanyahu is very close to Dick Cheney. But! The guy behind Netanyahu is really George Shultz. So, there's where the danger lies there, and that's typical of the situation.

Q: I mean, who are the think-tanks for, PNAC, Project for a New American Century? Are they in Britain, or in the U.S.?

LaRouche: Both! You have a general policy—it's called globalization. The general policy, which has emerged increasingly since Roosevelt died, has been first of all the conflict with the Soviet Union, which was created precisely to prevent Roosevelt's policies from being carried out, which was an anti-colonialism policy.

And this policy had been kicking around for a long time. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the idea was we could go to the elimination of the nation-state, or the virtual elimination of the nation-state, and have what's called an ultramontane system, a globalized system in which an international financial interest runs the entire world. Every nation in Asia is targetted: for example, India is targetted, China is targetted, Russia's targetted, all of the leading nations of Asia are, in particular, targetted for dissolution of their present form of government. This is the program.

Q: How do you see the difference between Democrats and Republicans, when it comes to Middle Eastern issues?

LaRouche: Well, this—it's not quite that way. Let's take the case of Bill Clinton. Now, Bill Clinton is Bill Clinton: He's very intelligent. He represents a group of people in the United States, to which I generally turn out to be associated with in the Democratic Party. But we also work with Republicans, who are, shall we say, the sane Republicans who think pretty much as we do on most issues, particularly on war and peace. So, there is no simple U.S. policy on this question. There is something across party lines. Most Democrats would tend to agree with us on getting out of this Middle East mess. Clinton is a leading spokesman for that. There are people in the Senate, in particular, who are leading spokesmen for that. You have on the Republican—

Q: I'm sorry, Mr. LaRouche. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Some observers believe that American administrations, whether Republicans or Democrats, have the same objective with regards to the Middle East, and just their approach differs. Do you agree?

LaRouche: No, there is not. It's more complicated. We're a nation which has many tendencies in it. Sometimes, certain combinations are on top. The top domination tends to be the financial community, the financial interest, which is sometimes the opponent of our government. And that's what it is.

For example, in the last year, I was able to change U.S. policy, as an individual, going into 2005. In 2005, we put up an excellent resistance to the worst of the Cheney-Bush policies and we were successful. Beginning this year, we've been a little less successful, and we're always fighting to get this thing under control. But on the main questions, the general American opinion is opposed to this war policy.

Q: You have been skeptical about the 9@dn11 incident from the very beginning. After you, people like Thierry Meyssan, von Bülow, and Chossudovsky, have been in line with your idea. Do you have any new documents showing something about the facts lying behind the 9@dn11 incident?

LaRouche: Well, I think some of your listeners who have ever done some hunting of animals would understand this better than most of our press people seem to understand it. What I said—before the inauguration of George Bush in January of 2001, I said, because of the financial crisis coming down, and the incompetence of a Bush Administration, we must expect soon, that there will be an incident like Hermann Göring setting fire to the Reichstag—in the attempt to establish a Bush dictatorship. Now, that happened. That's what 9@dn11 was. Somebody of the international forces which are controlled out of London and the U.S., these international forces decided to pull an attempt to establish a dictatorship in the United States. It did not succeed: But it came very dangerously close to succeeding. And that's what the fact is.

Why not look in that direction? In looking at history, that's the way you look at things. That's the way a competent strategist looks at things, not many of these gossips, who keep trying to find little secret things that may not exist.

Q: Why is George W. Bush insisting on pursuing the policies, which not only most Americans, but also the world, opposes?

LaRouche: Well, this is not just George Bush. George Bush is not the most intelligent man that the United States has ever put into public office! And I wouldn't go too far in trying to attribute intention to George. He runs with various policies. He's very limited intellectually, and he's controlled by circles of people around him, by and large. That's the problem. So, I wouldn't put too much on his intentions.

What you have, the power in the world today, is the international financier power, not political power as such. For example, the German government can't even govern its own country, because of Maastricht, because of the European club. Italy's somewhat the same; France, to a lesser degree, but more or less the same.

So, governments around the world today are very weak, because they are led to be controlled by international financial institutions which actually, effectively, control them. And this is the way, I think, you should look at it.

Q: It is interesting that sometimes we see that George W. Bush says something, especially in his interviews with the media, and after a couple of days some other official in, for example, the American State Department, says something quite the contrary to what George W. Bush has said. What is the reason behind this contradiction?

LaRouche: Because it's a complicated situation. George W. Bush is not very intelligent. He does have certain sentimental reactions to things. And there's a big conflict within the Administration, now, on what the policy is. For example, most of the crowd around George Bush does not want to go to war. They would go to bluffing to get their way on an issue, but they do not actually want to go to a new war.

Dick Cheney, on the other hand, the people behind him, want to go to a war! And they want to do anything possible to get to a war, right now. They are the ones trying to use Netanyahu as the alternative for an attack on Iran, whereas most forces in the United States are against getting into that kind of thing.

It's that kind of situation. We have a complicated situation inside our government. We do not have unanimity. We have fights constantly, on the interpretation of policy, on the interpretation of words—it's a daily fight, and there is no simple consistency in the process.

Q: And, one last question, Mr. LaRouche: Considering human and financial costs of the strike option against Iran, do you think the U.S. has the potential and ability to do that? And if it does so, what would the consequences be for the region and for the world?

LaRouche: Well, I think most people would agree with me, who are specialists, that an attack on Iran, which is what's planned, of course, as an option by Cheney and Company, is an aerial attack with the aid of sending in Special Forces for special operations. Now, such an attack, if it were significant, in terms of its effect on Iran, would mean a consolidation of the thing that the British have been pushing for, from the Arab Bureau, which is a return to the spirit of the Crusades, to treat Islam throughout the world as the enemy, as a way of running the world. It's like the Crusaders did during the Middle Ages; as like was done between 1492-1648 in Europe: Religious warfare. That's what they want to start.

But, the significance is, if they go to it, my estimate is that the price of oil goes, first of all, goes to about $150 a barrel. Similar kinds of problems erupt, general chaos. I don't think that the people who want this war, could win it, in any conventional sense. They could, however, create Hell on Earth. And I think anybody who understands this, wants to stop it, for that common understanding of why we have to stop it.

Q: Well, Mr. Lyndon LaRouche, [former] U.S. Presidential candidate, and editor and columnist at Executive Intelligence Review, it's always interesting talking with you. Thank you very much for your time.

April 04, 2006

In December 2003, Libya came in from the cold. Months of discussions with British, and later American, officials led to Libya's public declaration that it would abandon its nuclear and chemical weapons programs. Washington and London hoped to use Tripoli's announcement as an example of the benefits of publicly ending chemical and nuclear weapons programs in other states. North Korea and Iran, however, were not convinced. [See: "Libya Welcomes Weapons Inspectors in Return for Normalized Relations"]

The timing of Libya's thawing could not have been better for Tripoli. The increased energy demand from the emerging Asian economies, geopolitical uncertainty in other oil-producing states, and the approaching maturity of Middle Eastern oil reserves have increased the value of Libya's untapped energy reserves. [See: "The Increasing Importance of African Oil"]

Nevertheless, Libya's re-entry into the West's arms does not guarantee its path to stability. Domestic politics and the centrally-planned economy may still prevent Libya from taking full advantage of its deal with London and Washington.

The Oil that Came in from the Cold

After the Reagan administration's 1986 bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya began to abandon the Arab nationalist and Palestinian causes in favor of regional and economic concerns. This began the slow drift back to the West that culminated in March of 2003, when Libya's chief of intelligence, Musa Kussa, contacted the British government and signaled Libya's willingness to publicly abandon its programs on weapons of mass destruction in return for concessions from the United States.

Months of negotiations, sometimes including meetings between the C.I.A. and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, led to the December 2003 announcement of Libya's nascent nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs. Tripoli also agreed to spot inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) and to destroy any missiles with a range beyond 300 kilometers, some of which it had purchased from North Korea.

Washington and London hoped that Libya's example would encourage North Korea and Iran to also abandon their nuclear programs. While this did not pan out, Tripoli played a major role in the outing of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear black market. [See: "U.S. Attempts to Make an Example Out of Libya Will Fail"]

Libya's declaration of its weapons programs, as well as the US$2.7 billion in compensation it agreed to pay for the victims of the 1998 Lockerbie plane crash, led to the lifting of most of the sanctions imposed by the West. In April 2004, the U.S. suspended its trade embargo on Libya; in June, the U.S. resumed diplomatic relations with Tripoli; by September, Washington officially ended all sanctions on Libya and unfroze $1.3 billion in assets held in the U.S. The E.U. followed a similar path, and it also lifted its sanctions on Libya in September 2004. Libya had threatened to cancel half of its Lockerbie compensation payments if the sanctions were not lifted by April 2004 -- an example of Tripoli's sophistication in geopolitical negotiations.

Boom Times in Libya

Libya hopes that the lifting of the sanctions will attract $7 billion in oil exploration from foreign firms over the next ten years in order to add 20 billion barrels to its proven reserves of nearly 40 billion barrels. Its goal is to raise oil production from 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2005 to three million bpd over this time period.

The competition to invest in Libya has been steep. Asia's growing energy demands, instability in the Middle East, and the attractiveness of Libya's light, sweet crude helped ensure that Libya was able to extract favorable terms during the two exploration licensing rounds held in 2005. Fifty companies lined up for 23 of 26 exploration blocks offered -- each required large signing bonuses to be paid to Tripoli and a relatively small portion of future oil production to be taken by the winning firm. The Japan Petroleum Exploration Company went as low as to only take a 6.8 percent stake in future production rights from its block. ExxonMobil and China National Petroleum Corporation faired somewhat better with 28 percent stakes. Libya is also expected to demand contributions to its downstream refining capacity from foreign investors, and it is likely to see its request granted.

Adding to Libya's prospects are its $45 billion foreign-exchange holdings, annual oil sales running about $20 billion, and an agreement with France to cooperate on nuclear power for civilian usage.

However, even with foreign investors lining up for contracts in Libya's energy sector, the country's future is still uncertain. Approximately 70 percent of the work force is employed by the state, yet state wages remain frozen at their 1981 levels ($3,000 per year). Instead of providing raises, subsidies for water, electricity, and gas help to compensate. The wage freezes and subsidies have led to the peculiar situation in which 20 percent of citizens are unemployed while two million foreign workers sweat.

Foreign Direct Investment (F.D.I.) has been largely limited to the hydrocarbons sector because of red tape and the past sanctions regime. Still, the country's infrastructure has been largely frozen since the 1980s. Most of the country's oil fields are in need of maintenance and most power plants still run on diesel. Economic liberalization has not spread to the judiciary, nor does Gadhafi seem inclined to relinquish any of his power -- which contributes to the slow pace of finalizing F.D.I. deals as each needs the leader's approval.

While the U.S. is still attempting to use Libya as an example to other states with nuclear weapons programs, it is still cautious in its relations with Tripoli. Washington has decided not to remove Libya from its list of state sponsors of terrorism this year, according to Reuters. "It's a question of confidence and time," Henry Crumpton, the U.S. State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, told the news agency. This is aimed at giving Washington some leverage to force further economic reforms, but as the intelligence relationship matures between Tripoli and Washington, it can be expected that Libya will be removed from the list in a future review.

Conclusion

Recent events indicate that Libya is open to a reformist path that would allow it to better take advantage of the F.D.I that followed its declaration of its weapons programs. Saif al-Islam, Gadhafi's son, and others in the government gave Harvard Business School economist Michael Porter's 200-page blueprint for reforming Libya's economy a warm reception. The report recommends making the necessary investments to increase oil production to three million bpd, diversifying the economy by investing in tourism, agriculture, and construction, but "while retaining the unique character of the Libyan" republic.

Which steps Gadhafi takes to open Libya's economy and what he does to maintain his grip on power will determine the country's future. Shukri Ghanem's dismissal as prime minister earlier this month seems to indicate that Gadhafi may be willing to sacrifice some reforms for a tighter grip on power. Libya still faces a long hard march in from the cold; it seems certain that there will be disruptions along the way.

Report Drafted By:Adam Wolfe

The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an independent organization that utilizes open source intelligence to provide conflict analysis services in the context of international relations. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of inquiries@pinr.com. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com.

URUMQI, April 03 : Ismail Tiliwaldi, governor of the Xinjiang Uyger autonomous region of China said his government will consider establishing rail link with Pakistan to expand the avenues of bilateral cooperation in socio-economic sectors."We will soon hold a feasibility study to find out possibilities of operating rail network between the two brotherly countries through Kashgir, he said during his meeting held with the visiting delegation of Pakistan Muslim League (PML), led by Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed.China, particularly its western region (Xinjiang) attaches great importance to its decades' old traditional alliance with Pakistan and wished to have greater interaction to strengthen their mutually beneficial cooperative partnership, he added.The two sides agreed that the Western region has rich potential to emerge as hub of Sino-Pak business activities, with further development of road, rail and air network. Pakistan and China have already decided to start a regular bus service between Kashgar and Gilgit on daily basis from June 1. Two countries will also start goods transportation service via Khunjrab pass from May 1.Pakistan International Airlines and China Southern Airline are also operating their flights on this route on regular basis. The Xinjiang, Muslim-majority region has 17 ports open to the outside world. The region, also linked through old Silk Route could provide tremendous boost to economic collaboration at regional and international levels, said Mushahid Hussain.

April 02, 2006

Intelligence circles in India are taking a closer look at why "Many Indian intellectuals are toeing the anti-Hindu line ". An answer was given to IntelliBriefs by a source close to Intelligence community who is closely watching the events and individuals in action . He says these individuals are after jobs in western academia , but some of these are more than just practicing hindus when they go to their home , " they will follow strict rituals in their homes" said the source . Some of them are supposed to be on payrolls of Pakistani ISI . This source who was tasked to monitor all individuals by some agencies said by doing this , "will get ptronage and jobs from Western academics" .

This was a major reason why Indian intellectuals in the U.S., especially humanities graduate students lined up behind Witzel of Harvard University , he said . They thought that his influence will get them jobs and money ,however the truth is " these departments and Witzel are scrambling for funds ".

This source told IntelliBriefs that they have prepared a detailed dossiers on all individuals and organizations with timelines dating back to 90's . He observed that Hindu community has awaken and aware of their adversaries actions and harm done by humanities intellictuals in academic world . He pointed that Hindu community in order to teach a lesson to these academic institutes are on offensive by urging wealthy hindus not to donate funds to these individuals and institutes . There is one word that is resonating in Hindu circles "We should starve them(anti-hindu universities) to death".

"She even had submitted a list of 340 signatures of MPs on their respective letterheads proposing her name. One of those letters was signed by Sonia Gandhi as an MP proposing herself!"

And:

"She also had demanded that 3,000 persons be invited to witness the oath-taking ceremony and that it be held on the lawns of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Such was the atmosphere till 3.30 p.m. on May 17. Is this the behaviour of a sacrificing angel?"

No one goes into politics without wanting power. Politics is about power. One can serve the people without going into politics, if that is all one wants to do.

President Kalam, having once been burnt dissolving the Bihar Assembly, would be twice shy about signing the ordinance. By this, having twice disappointed her, he has probably earned her eternal wrath.

DERA BUGTI, Pakistan — Explosions at gas pipelines and railroad tracks are common in this remote desert region. Now, roadside bombs and artillery shells are, too. More than 100 civilians have been killed in recent months, along with dozens of government security forces, local residents and Pakistan's Human Rights Commission say.

This is the other front of Pakistan's widening civil unrest, not the tribal areas along the Afghan border where the United States would like the government to press a campaign against Islamic militants, but the restive province of Baluchistan, home to an intensifying insurgency.

It is here, say local leaders and opposition politicians, that Pakistan, an important ally in the United States' campaign against terrorism, has diverted troops from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban to settle old scores as it seeks to develop the region's valuable oil and gas reserves.

One visit makes it clear that, despite official denials, the government is waging a full-scale military campaign here. Rebel leaders say they have several thousand men under arms, fighting what they estimate are 23,000 Pakistani troops.

During a 24-hour trek on camel, horse and foot across the rugged, stony terrain in early March, the fighting was plain to see. Military jets and surveillance planes flew over the area, and long-range artillery lighted up the distant night sky.

This fight is altogether separate from the Taliban insurgency on Afghanistan's border or the Shiite-Sunni violence that sporadically flares in and around the provincial capital, Quetta, and it threatens to dwarf the nation's other conflicts.

It is about the ethnic rights and self-rule of the Baluch people, who are distinct among Pakistanis. They speak their own language, Baluchi, which has its roots in Persian, and are probably the oldest settlers in the region.

In particular, tensions have been aggravated by President Pervez Musharraf's determination to develop the area's oil and gas fields, the largest in the country, as well as his aim to build a pipeline across the region to carry oil from Iran and a strategic deep sea port to expand trade with China, local residents say.

They charge that General Musharraf has shown little regard for their concerns and that for years their province has received paltry royalties on its resources, while remaining one of the country's poorest regions.

The government has branded two of the rebel leaders, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, nearly 80, and Balach Marri, 40, "miscreants," outlaws who oppose economic development to retain a hold over their tribes.

In an interview under the shade of a rocky overhang, Mr. Bugti and Mr. Marri, who share the names of the tribes they lead, dismissed the charges. They are not opposed to economic development, they said, but rather to the Pakistani government's military campaign to suppress them.

"The military government has imposed military rule and this has forced the Baluch to defend their land and resources against the might of the armed forces of Pakistan assembled in our area," Mr. Bugti said, perched in a carved wooden armchair as tribesmen sat around him cradling Kalashnikov rifles.

"The dispute is about the national rights of the Baluch," he added, "and if the government accepted these rights then there would be no dispute."

Mr. Bugti and others said that the government was using its American-supplied jets and helicopter gunships against them. They said they had found bomb fragments with "Made in U.S.A." stamped on them.

Indeed, huge craters and fragments from American-designed MK-82 bombs lay beside a badly damaged school in the village of Mararar, the results of a bombing raid that the Baluch fighters said had occurred at the beginning of March.

Another bombing raid on or around March 14 hit two bulldozers building a road, the fighters said. A collection of bomb fragments gathered by tribesmen from other raids revealed a "valve solenoid" made in New York, and part of a gas generator made in Mesa, Ariz.

Last year, the Baluch political leaders presented a 15-point agenda to the central government. The demands included greater control of the province's resources, protection for the Baluch minority and a halt to the building of military bases that local residents say have proliferated here.

Concern over the issues had been building for years, said Suret Khan Marri, a historian living in Quetta, the provincial capital, and the concerns and violence reach far beyond the Bugti and Marri tribes.

"The movement is there," he said in an interview. "Sometimes it is crushed. Now it is the fifth insurgency, and it has spread all across the Baluch area."

Armed resistance by Baluch nationalists has been a repeating occurrence since the birth of Pakistan in 1947, when tribal leaders, Mr. Bugti among them, only grudgingly joined Pakistan after having ruled independent territories under the British.

The bitterness today is such that the tribal leaders compare the situation to the 1950's, when Bangladesh broke from Pakistan. "If grievances have come to this level— that we do not mind if Pakistan disintegrates— then things are bad," Mr. Marri, the rebel leader, said.

The terrain here is marked by harsh, rocky desert, rising into craggy mountains and cut through with narrow gorges that supply many hiding places for shepherds, or guerrilla fighters. In the summer, temperatures soar to more than 120 degrees.

The shadowy Baluchistan Liberation Army, one of three armed resistance groups born in the 1970's, has claimed responsibility for many of the recent attacks, including the killing of three Chinese engineers working on the deep sea port, at Gwadar. Mr. Marri said that he did not know who was leading the group, but that it was neither a Bugti nor a Marri.

The most recent violence has included summary killings of settlers from the Punjab, whom Baluch nationalists blame for stealing jobs and land.

Hundreds of political party members, students, doctors and tribal leaders have been detained by government security forces, many disappearing for months, even years, without trials in well-documented cases. Some have been tortured or have died in custody, say officials of Pakistan's Human Rights Commission.

A Baluch doctor, Bari Langove, 36, said he had examined a student leader, Dr. Allah Nasar Baloch, in a prison ward in Quetta six months ago and found him so debilitated that he could neither walk nor talk at first.

"He was mentally exhausted and wholly unable to speak," Dr. Langove said in an interview in Quetta. "We examined him and found he had post-traumatic stress disorder, symptoms of loss of short-term memory, insomnia, loss of appetite and energy."

In places like Dera Bugti and Kohlu, government forces have carried out reprisals against villagers, Baluch leaders and human rights officials say. In a case documented by the Human Rights Commission, the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force commanded by army officers, killed 12 men from Pattar Nala on Jan. 11 after a mine explosion near the village killed some of its soldiers.

Two old men from the village who went to the base to collect the bodies were also killed. The next day, the 14 bodies were handed over to the women of the village.

Local fighters say the Frontier Corps has carried out 42 such reprisal killings in the last three months, the latest involving six villagers during the week of March 6.

The government offensive began after a rocket attack on President Musharraf as opened a military base in Kohlu on Dec. 17 — an attack for which officials blamed Marri rebels, and Mr. Marri in particular.

Shortly afterward, government forces stormed the town of Dera Bugti, Mr. Bugti said, adding that they were burning shops and houses there still, including his family home.

The government has played down the fighting, and denies that the Pakistani Army is even deployed in Baluchistan, saying that it is merely using the Frontier Corps to run a police operation to stem violence.

In interviews, the police chief, Chaudhry Muhammad Yakub, put the number of rebels at no more than 1,000. The provincial governor Owais Ahmed Ghani, said 36,000 Frontier Corps soldiers were deployed in Baluchistan, with two-thirds concentrated along the Afghan border. Both predicted that the Baluchistan conflict would be over within two months.

In all this, Mr. Bugti is an unexpected participant. He has been a prominent player in regional politics for many years and was governor of Baluchistan. He has spent time in detention on charges of murder during a long and colorful life.

Educated under the British Raj, he is a man from a bygone era, who said he attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in London in 1953.

Now, forced to flee his home, he lives an austere life, camping out under the stars with his loyal tribesmen, a Kalashnikov propped by his aluminum walking stick.

"I have had a good and full life," he said, unperturbed. "It is better to die quickly in the mountains than slowly in your bed."

He warned that the government would be foolish not to negotiate with the senior tribal leaders. "If we are removed from the scene, I can guarantee the government will have a heck of a time from the younger generation, because they are more extreme," he said.

One of his grandsons, Brahamdagh, 25, is commanding the Bugti resistance fighters, and he appeared silently every so often to brief his grandfather. He took to the mountains in 2002 with just 50 to 60 men.

Brahamdagh contended that he now had more than 2,000 fighters in Dera Bugti and thousands more civilian helpers. He said the Marris had roughly the same number in Kohlu. In addition, small cells of fighters are in every district of the province, he said.

"There are so many groups," he said. "Three to four guys get together and decide what to do, to hit a railway or a bus. We are showing our bitterness. We are fighting the government to show we are not happy with you and you should leave our homeland."

Mr. Marri, who arrived unannounced one afternoon, on foot and accompanied by a dozen armed fighters, is another of the younger generation. The third son of the leader of the Marri tribe, he has spent most of his life outside Pakistan.

In 2002, he returned to run for Parliament but spent most of his time in his home in Kohlu, the capital of the Kohlu district, until forced to flee by the government offensive. "If they think they can pressure us like this, then they don' t know us," he warned. "The Baluch people have woken up."

The Human Rights Commission and opposition political parties have urged both sides to seek a political solution to the conflict. Yet at the moment there is no dialogue.

Two parliamentary committees set up last year to look into Baluch grievances have stalled, and General Musharraf has been blunt in his determination to use force against anyone opposing his vision for the region.

In their mountain stronghold, Mr. Bugti and Mr. Marri, and a third leader, Ataullah Mengal, in his home in Karachi, are disparaging about talks with the government.

"They are not worth sitting with at the table," Mr. Marri said. "The general keeps offering peanuts when my rights are at stake. We are not against negotiations, but only negotiations that are worthwhile."

Mr. Bugti offered his own grim prognosis. "I don' t see it ending," he said.

Salman Masood contributed reporting from Karachi, Pakistan, for this article

Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee (1901-1953) was a great scholar, an ardent Hindu nationalist and an outspoken Parliamentarian. He was born on 6 July, 1901 in a Brahmin family with a very high social standing in Bengal. From his parents Sri Asutosh Mukerjee and Jogmaya Devi, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee inherited a splendid saga of erudite scholarship and fervent nationalism. Both of them inspired him to live a pure, dedicated, selfless, totally fearless and manly life. His father who was perhaps the most distinguished Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University gave him the following message early in his life: 'To have lived long does not necessarily imply the gathering of much wisdom and experience. A man who has pedalled 25,000 miles on a stationary bi-cycle has not circled the globe. He has only garnered weariness'. No wonder Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee packed into his short life of 52 years unsurpassed exertions and unremitting toil of several lives.

Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee had a brilliant academic record in Calcutta University, taking his Honours Degree in English and securing the first position in the first class from the Presidency College in 1921. He also took his M A degree in Indian vernaculars. In 1924 he took his B L degree from Calcutta University again topping the list. He went to England to pursue further legal studies and was called to the Bar in 1927 from Lincoln's Inn. Though he was fully qualified for it, he never practiced law as a profession. He became the youngest Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University in 1934 at the age of 33 and continued in that position till 1938. Calcutta University conferred on him D Litt and Benares Hindu University honoured him with LLD in 1938.

Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee's political career was marked by his deathless commitment to his ideals of burning patriotism and selfless service. His political career began in 1929 when he became a member of the Bengal Legislative Council.He was elected as a Congress candidate from the university constituency. He acted as a watchdog for the Calcutta University in the Council. But in response to the Congress call for boycott of Council, he resigned, but later re-entered it as an independent member for the sake of the university when he was re-elected in 1937. As a firm believer in Hindutva and Sanatana Dharma, he became president of All India Hindu Mahasabha in 1939. That did not come in the way of his becoming the Finance Minister of Bengal in 1941 in the hectic days of the II World War. Even while remaining in the government, he actively opposed the British government when the leading Congress leaders were arrested after the Quit India Resolution was passed in Bombay on 9 August, 1942. When his views on the patriotism of the Congress leaders went unheeded, he resigned from the Ministry as a protest against the British policy of oppression and suppression of civil liberties in India.

The great Bengal famine of 1943, generally referred to as Panchasher Manvantar by the Bengalis (the famine of fifty, ie the Bengal year 1350), was a great calamity. During the period 1943-46, 38 lakhs of people died as a result of the famine and the epidemic diseases that accompanied it. When this issue came up for debate in the Bengal Legislative Assembly, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee indicted both the Food Minister of Bengal H S Suharawardy and his business friend Ispahani in these words: 'IN THE NAME OF THE STARVING MILLIONS OF BENGAL I CONDEMN YOU. ON BEHALF OF THE HELPLESS FAMILIES OF RURAL BENGAL WHO HAVE LOST THEIR BREADWINNERS, CHAMPIONS AND PROTECTORS I CONDEMN YOU. BENGAL HAS NOT SEEN GREATER ACTS OF OFFICIAL CRIME IN ITS LONG HISTORY'.

Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee(1901-1953)Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee covered himself with glory by his Himalayan relief efforts during the deathly days of Bengal famine. Government of Bengal appointed an apex relief organisation called Relief Coordination Committee with Badridas Goenka as president and Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee as vice-president. Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee saw to it that 5000 relief kitchens were opened in Bengal for catering to the needs of famine-stricken people. He rose above narrow party alignments and in the process emerged as the most shining symbol of Bengali protest against the arrogance of British imperial authorities and the misdeeds of the Bengal government.

Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee was initially a strong opponent of the partition of India. But following the communal riots of 1946 organised by H S Suharawardy, Prime Minister of Bengal, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee strongly advocated against Hindus living in a Muslim- dominated State government controlled by the Muslim League. He supported the partition of Bengal in 1946 in order to prevent the inclusion of the Hindu majority areas in a Muslim-dominated East Pakistan.

On the advice of Mahatma Gandhi, Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru inducted Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee in the interim Central government in New Delhi as a Minister for Industry and Supply. He came to be widely respected by many Indians and also by members of the Indian National Congress and Sardar Vallabhai Patel.

But on the issue of Nehru's 1949 Delhi Pact with Pakistan Prime Minister Liyakat Ali Khan, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee resigned from the Central Cabinet on 6 April, 1950. He was firmly against Nehru's invitation to the Pakistani Prime Minister and their pact to establish Minority Commissions and guarantee minority rights in both countries. He wanted Nehru to hold Pakistan directly responsible for the terrible influx of millions of Hindu refugees from East Pakistan, who had left the State fearing religious suppression and violence aided by the State. Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee described Nehru's action as 'abject Muslim appeasement', and was hailed as a great hero by the people of West Bengal.

On 21 October, 1951, after a long and detailed discussion with Sri Guruji Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, Leader of the RSS, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee founded 'Bharatiya Jan Sangh' (Indian People's Union) at Delhi and became its first president. Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, with his legal background, also strongly advocated a Uniform Civil Code for both Hindus and Muslims. He wanted a ban on cow slaughter. He pointed out the paramount political necessity of ending the special status of Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir in the larger interest of India's integrity and national unity. Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee defined the contours of the Hindutva agenda which later became the wider political expression of India's Hindu majority in the 1990s. Deen Dayal Upadyaya, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and several other latter-day BJP stalwarts were inspired by the personality and example of Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee.

In the 1952 general elections to the Parliament of India, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and the BJS won 3 seats. When he was proceeding to Kashmir in 1953 in order to go on a hunger strike on reaching there to protest against the law prohibiting any Indian citizen from settling in that State (which was in their own country) and the need to carry I D cards, he was arrested on 11 May, 1953 while crossing the Jammu & Kashmir-India border. Although the I D card rule was revoked on account of his efforts, he died as a political detenu on 23 May, 1953. Even before he had set out from Delhi, Sri Guruji Golwalkar had advised him not to go to Jammu & Kashmir and warned him about the possibility of his not returning back alive from Kashmir. Sri Guruji had also sent a letter to the same effect through a special messenger which failed to reach him on time. According to many well-informed people, he was politically assassinated with the full political blessings of Sheik Abdullah and Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru.

At a time when all the Congress leaders including Pundit Nehru found themselves in the mire of triple 'secular' synchronisation, conceptual confusion, political incompetence and human failure to deal with the Muslim problem in India, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee spoke these prophetic words in his last speech in Parliament on 15 November, 1952:

'I remember I saw a number of Congress leaders and especially Gandhiji and some of us begged of him to appreciate the real point of view whether it will be possible for the minorities to live in Pakistan, in view of the circumstances under which that new country was taking its birth. AND WE SUGGESTED A PLANNED EXCHANGE OF POPULATION AND PROPERTY AT GOVERNMENTAL LEVEL AS PART OF THE PARTITION SCHEME. He was not willing to accept it because their view point was that what they were agreeing to was not a communal division of India, but a territorial division of India'.

Today we are having not only a communal division but also a territorial division of votebank politics in every State in India today. In 1947 we were dealing with only one reasonable and responsible statesman like Jinnah. Today we are constrained to deal with hundreds of self-proclaimed 'Jinnahs' not knowing what they want and not allowing anybody else also to understand what they want. If only our countrymen had listened to the advice of Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee at that time, there would have been no problem whatsoever between Hindus and Muslims either in Pakistan or in India after 1947.

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